na (1788-93) was accused of bribery,
but the King absolved him.

In the last century a Governor of Yloilo is said to have absconded in
a sailing-ship with a large sum of the public funds. A local Governor
was then also _ex-officio_ administrator; and, although the system
was afterwards reformed, official extortion was rife throughout the
whole Spanish administration of the Colony, up to the last.

A strange drama of the year 1622 well portrays the spirit of the
times--the immunity of a Gov.-General in those days, as well as
the religious sentiment which accompanied his most questionable
acts. Alonso Fajardo de Tua having suspected his wife of infidelity,
went to the house where she was accustomed to meet her paramour. Her
attire was such as to confirm her husband's surmises. He called
a priest and instructed him to confess her, telling him that he
intended to take her life. The priest, failing to dissuade Fajardo from
inflicting such an extreme penalty, took her confession and proffered
her spiritual consolation. Then Fajardo, incensed with jealousy,
mortally stabbed her. No inquiry into the occurrence seems to have
been made, and he continued to govern for two years after the event,
when he died of melancholy. It is recorded that the paramour, who was
the son of a Cadiz merchant, had formerly been the accepted _fiance_
of Fajardo's wife, and that he arrived in Manila in their company. The
Governor gave him time to confess before he killed him, after which
(according to one account) he caused his house to be razed to the
ground, and the land on which it stood to be strewn with salt. Juan
de la Concepcion, however, says that the house stood for one hundred
years after the event as a memorial of the punishment.

In 1640 Olivarez, King Philip IV.'s chief counsellor, had succeeded by
his arrogance and unprecedented policy of repression in arousing the
latent discontent of the Portuguese. A few years previously they had
made an unsuccessful effort to regain their independent nationality
under the sovereignty of the Duke of Braganza. At length, when a call
was made upon their boldest warriors to support the King of Spain in
his protracted struggle with the Catalonians, an insurrection broke
out, which only terminated when Portugal had thrown off, for ever,
the scourge of Spanish supremacy.

The Duke of Braganza was crowned King of Portugal under the title
of John IV., and every Portuguese colony declared in his favour,
e